Huang Xing and Traditional Chinese Culture

Huang Xing and Traditional Chinese Culture XIAO Zhizhi* Confucius is representative of China’s classical culture. His sayings and thought infl uenced Chinese history for over two thousand years. Confucian thought long occupied a dominant position in Chinese society, in particular during the Song（ 960-1279）, Yuan（ 1271-1368）, Ming（ 1368-1644）, and Qing periods（ 1644-1911）. Confucius is respected as a sage teacher, and has been considered a paragon for emulation throughout the ages. Huang Xing 黄兴（1874-1916） received a thoroughly traditional Confucian education during his youth, and studied systemically Confucius’s sayings and thought, which he understood well. At the same time, while he was leading the revolution, he accepted the best aspects of traditional culture with a critical spirit. He himself was a devoted practitioner of the best aspects of traditional culture. He was renowned as a great man of the people with outstanding ethical integrity. I. Receiving a good Confucian education from childhood Huang Xing was taught to read and write at the age of fi ve by his father, Huang Bingkun 黄炳坤. His fi rst text was the collection of Confucius’s sayings, The Analects（ Lunyü）. By the time he was seven, Huang Xing had already read all of the Great Learning（ Daxue）, the Doctrine of the Mean （Zhong yong）, and Mencius （Mengzi）, or in other words, the Four Books （Sishu）. He committed the texts to memory and was able to recite them fl uently. When Huang Xing was eight or nine, Xiao Rongjue 萧荣爵, who had been appointed juren 举人（ candidate for the Imperial Examinations）, became his teacher. Huang Xing also read the Five Classics（ Wujing）, consisting of the Classic of Poetry （Shijing）, Classic of History （Shujing）, Classic of Changes（ Yijing）, Classic of Rites（ Lij）, and the Spring and Autumn Annals （Chunqiu）. At the same time, he listened respectfully to the exposition by Xiao Rongjue on the Analects and other Chinese Confucian classics, and succeeded in learning how to recite and write poetry. After this, he learned * Professor of Chinese history at Wuhan University, China. 76 Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol.3 2012 important principles through studying the Four Books and Five Classics （Sishu Wujing） at the home of Hanlin Academy scholar Zhou Liqiao 周笠樵. He also studied quite a few works by the pre-Qin thinkers, extended his reading to Tang shi poetry and Song ci poetry, and mastered writing essays in the contemporary style. Subsequently, Huang spent fi ve years—from 1893 to 1897—in the Chengnan Shuyuan 城南书院 Academy in Changsha, where he continued studying mainly the Confucian classics. Letters are the shining attire of the literati. His calligraphy properly combined fi rmness and gentle- ness, leading people to extol him thus: “His writing is as beautiful as that of Su Dongpo 苏东坡; his Chinese characters demonstrate the technique of the Northern Wei calligraphers.” From 1898 to 1902 Huang Xing studied at the Wuchang Lianghu Shuyuan 两湖 Academy, which combined the old and new learning. The school followed the educational policy of Zhang Zhidong 张之洞（1837-1909）, Governor-General of Guangdong and Hunan, and his motto of “Chinese learning for fundamental principles and Western learning for practical appli- cation.” A curriculum that taught simultaneously traditional Chinese classics and new Western learning was naturally somewhat different from a strictly classical education, yet at the core it did not depart completely from the Confucian classics. Therefore, it could be said that during the years between ages fi ve and twenty-eight—until Huang left to study in Japan—he was always in contact with traditional Confucian culture. He was thus a democratic revolutionary who received a complete and systematic Confucian cultural education. In this respect, he was quite dissimilar to Sun Yat-sen （1866-1925）, who could only recite some phrases from the Chinese classics in spite of having spent several years studying at a village school before the age of thirteen. Sun lacked understanding of the content. From the age of thirteen he followed his mother to Honolulu, after which he received a completely Westernized education. II. The fi rst person who proposed to revitalize traditional culture after the establishment of the Republic After the 1911 Revolution, the old autocratic system of rule was over- thrown, and the fi rst democratic republic in Asia was founded. The Republic brought great liberation to people’s thinking processes, but at the same time engendered some signifi cant misconceptions. Thoughts were disorganized and social customs, both good and evil, were indiscriminately rejected. Many young people misconstrued freedom and democracy by using the slogan of revolution against the family unit. Some of them “used the pretext of freedom to not observe laws and regulations and to take advantage of equality to overlook culture.” Others regarded “the abandonment of parents to be Huang Xing and Traditional Chinese Culture 77 freedom,” and “the violation of laws to be equality.” Such excesses resulted in their “taking caution against fi lial piety, brotherly love, loyalty, and trust- worthiness” and “evading as illnesses rites, righteousness, loyalty, and shame;” therefore, “political orders [were] not to be followed, and moral principles completely discarded.” When Huang Xing saw these chaotic phenomena, he said that he was “extremely anxious;” he perceived these events as a grave social crisis, and that “verily, the damage caused by beasts of prey and fl ooding do not exceed them.” In light of these serious, harmful phenomena, Huang Xing sent telegrams to President Yuan Shikai 袁世凯（1859-1916）, Premier Tang Shaoyi 唐绍仪（1862-1938）, and Minister of Education Cai Yuanpei 蔡元培（ 1868-1940）, asking them to redress the situa- tion. He also sent telegrams to every government-general, giving a new exposition of traditional moral and ethical views. He warned fervently against the chaos and requested that a general order be circulated to teachers in leading schools of all levels throughout the country to elucidate to students the new meaning of traditional ethics. In his telegrams he stated: “Don’t let fallacies become rampant, causing we Chinese, the offspring of the Yellow Emperor, to head mistakenly down the wrong path. To protect the country and protect our descendents, this is our only recourse.”1 Huang Xing fully utilized the initiative of promotion of outstanding traditional morals during the building of a new order in the democratic republic. He devised new interpretations of traditional morals and ethics that were rich in innovation. Traditional morals and ethics such as loyalty, fi lial piety, compassion, and love had been misconstrued under the autocratic systems of rule since the Qin（ 221-206 BCE） and Han（ 206 BCE to 220 AD） periods, devolving into a staunch tool of autocratic regimes. Loyalty 忠had been reduced to loyalty to a ruler; fi lial piety 孝 had come to represent simply piety toward parents. The fabrication of such fallacies “is a ramifi cation of too many schools of discourse, which has obscured the true way. Rulers confi ne themselves to their own countries, and individuals to their own families. Even thieves usurp countries; even the wicked have households.” Ultimately, this leads to the disaster of “northern barbarians who usurp the throne, who are called capable and virtuous,” completely abandoning the fundamental meaning of “loyalty” and “piety.” Huang Xing emphasized that unless Chinese eradicated such delusions they would “lose respect for humanity.” The cause of such abuse “is not rooted in people’s respect for loyalty and 1 Telegrams to each governor-general 致各省都督电, May 22, 1912, in Liu Yangyang 刘泱泱, Huang Xingji 黄兴集 I [Huang Xing Collection, I ], Hunan renmin chubanshe 湖南人民出版社（ Hunan People’s Publishing House）, 2008, p. 371. 78 Journal of Cultural Interaction in East Asia Vol.3 2012 piety, but in their blindness towards the true meaning of loyalty and piety.” Huang Xing formulated an incisive commentary on the true meaning of loyalty and piety: Our country is the earliest civilization. Piety, loyalty, rites, and righteousness were the elements that built this country and then became the spirit of the rule of law. When it comes to loyalty, faithfully carrying out one’s duty rather than doing servitude to rulers is called loyalty. This is what the ancients meant when they said, “when the rulers consider benefi ting their peoples, the latter will die to repay their countries.” When it comes to piety, establishing oneself properly rather than being pious merely toward relatives is true piety. On the anti-Qing revolution then current he said: With all of their bodies and souls fathers instruct, and brothers encourage. No sooner has one fallen as a martyr then another succeeds him, repeatedly carrying out revenge for nine generations, bequeathing happiness on the closest relatives. At the level of country, this could be called loyalty; at the level of family, this could be called piety. Therefore, theories of political and family revolutions are raised to improve the polity; they are not mutually exclusive with the greater source of loyalty and piety.2 In November of that same year, Huang said in a speech at the Changsha Zhounan Women’s School 长沙周南女校: “All who can do things in a serious manner can be called loyal. Just as the ancient（ Zengzi 曾子, 505-436 BC）, who conducted daily self-refl ection, asked himself: ‘Was I loyal to my friends in making suggestions?’ ―this could be called the true meaning of loyalty and piety.” Huang Xing not only corrected many fallacies and conformed to original meanings, but also reinvigorated the people with his new interpretations. He called the fulfi llment of duty loyalty, and converted “loyalty to the ruler” into loyalty to the country, the people, and to each person’s under- taking.

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